19. A weird number to end on.
Got up at 3am. Drove away at 4am. Ruled out Glacier National Park. Roads closed. Headed straight west into the Rockies. The sun started nipping at our taillights just as we entered God’s showcase of mountains. Clear roads. Absolutely no snow. Clear and smooth sailing all the way over Crowsnest pass. Hard to keep my eyes on the road, being surrounded with such beauty.
Change. When we entered Cranbrook we subconsciously shifted. We had eaten lunch in Cranbrook three weeks earlier on the way into Canada. Now we were stopping at Walmart and buying mixed nuts…not sure of any hidden meaning in those subconscious actions. Minji couldn’t find her passport. Visions of leaving our South Korean freshman in a foreign country…not a good way to end a course on intro to missions. She found it.
Final naps before the border.
The border. Our car with me and a South Korean and a Canadian student went through first. The lady security guard grilled us with questions. What was my profession? Professor. How long had we been in Canada? What did we do? Why had we done it? We all stuttered over that one. Could you please roll down the back window so we can speak with the students in the back seat directly. Can’t roll down the window. Probably frozen. In fact, all three windows were frozen. Daniel: Is there a child-proof lock that might be keeping the windows from rolling down? I looked at the buttons on my door and asked, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s this one. All three windows rolled down.
The lady security guard looked at the three students in the car and asked, “WHICH one of you is the professor? Maybe we should start the questioning all over again.” Looking at me, she asked, “What do you really do for a living?” The male security guard was shaking his head, rolling his eyes, and trying to holding onto his clipboard while laughing.
They pulled us over and asked questions about fruits (nut cases?), vegetables, fire arms, drugs, etc., etc. They didn’t pull the second car over for anything. We weren’t sure if the second car wanted to be associated with the first car.
Bonner’s Ferry for gas.
Sandpoint was our last stop for chocolate. Took hwy 2 and stopped in a kitchen shop in Newport. I had told the students that I knew the owner personally. The owner wasn’t there, but the lady who was there asked me who I was. Credibility gap.
Spokane. Dropped people off at their houses. Arrived at Ashley’s house. No one else in her house until later in the day. She’s going to watch movies to get through the culture shock.
Goodbyes. See you tomorrow in church.
I should probably blog Day Twenty which ended in church. Fitting. Lots of praise for safe travel, experiences on the trip that would never have been possible under any other circumstances, safe travel, weight gains from too much food and too little work, safe travel, new relationships…classes start tomorrow.
Wonder what the Lord has in mind for our next ‘un-planned’spontaneous adventure? Hope you enjoyed this adventure vicariously.
